The Grantha alphabet is a descendent of
the Brahmi alphabet and started to emerge during the 5th century AD.

Sanskrit was transmitted orally
for a long time, and so was mostly written in the local script.
(It is only in recent times, since Sanskrit was introduced in the modern
universities, that the Devanagari was adopted as the standard.) In
Bengal, it was written in the Bengali script; in Andhra, in the Telugu
script.

The last three consonants are example of conjuncts.

Total alphabets are about 48 in number, without the
Dravidian characters like the ra and zha.
Granthakshara was used to write Sanskrit in Kerala before Ezhuthachan's
time. Vattezhuthu used as Malayalam alphabet during that time is similar
to Tamil and is given for comparison.

Vattezhuthu and
its derivations

Vattezhuthu was the early script used to write
Malayalam. Total alphabets were about 30.

From the vattezhuthu was
derived another script called the kolezhuthu. There is no fundamental
difference between the two scripts except that in kolezhuthu there are no
specific symbols for endings in u and for a and o. This script was more
commonly used in the Cochin and Malabar areas than in Travancore. Yet
another script derived from the vattezhuthu was the Malayanma, which was
commonly used south to Thiruvananthapuram. Malayanma also does not differ
fundamentally from the vattezhuthu.

The absence of character
combinations, the vowels a and o and conventions for symbols were real
difficulties in Vattezhuthu. The trouble with kolezhuthu was still more,
for it had regional variations also. And in the case Malayanma, the
complexity of the script, Tamil usage and conventional abbreviations for
words made it unintelligible to the rest of the region. With all these
three scripts in current use the writing and reading of Malayalam must
indeed have been a difficult affair.

Tamil

Tamilis a Dravidian language spoken mainly in Tamil Nadu and
Sri Lanka. The Tamil alphabet is descended from the Brahmi script of
ancient India. The earliest known Tamil inscriptions date back to at least
500 BC.

Total alphabets are 30 in number as Vattezhuthu, and
the consonants have got the same limitations to write Sanskrit.

In the
Tamil region, the script used to write Sanskrit was (and to this day in
traditional patasalas is) Grantha. The situation was similar in
Kerala before Ezhuthachan's time.

Devanagiri

The
Devanāgarī ('divine Nagari') alphabet descended from the Brahmi script
sometime around the 11th century AD. It was originally developed to write
Sanksrit but was later adapted to write many other languages. It is only
in recent times, since Sanskrit was introduced in the modern universities,
that the Devanagari was adopted as the standard.

Total alphabets about 48, without the
Dravidian characters.

Hindi uses the
same script and hence Devanagiri is not reproduced here.

Devanagiri is also used to write
Marathi, Pali, Sindhi and many more.

Brahmi

The ancient alphabet system of India, Brahmi alphabet
is the ancestor of most of the 40 or so modern Indian alphabets, and of a
number of other alphabets, such as Khmer and Tibetan. It appeared in India
sometime before 500 BC. There is a theory that Brahmi developed from the
Indus or Harappa script, which was used in the Indus valley until about
2,000 BC.

The earliest known inscriptions in the Brahmi alphabet
are those of King Asoka (c.270-232 BC), third monarch of the Mauryan
dynasty.

Brahmi was used to write Sanskrit, Prakrit and other languages
also. Total alphabets are approximately 44. The vowels and
consonants are of the same order as that of the later scripts used to
write Sanskrit.